Degradation of Western Society

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602, or toll free across the

United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

James White. Greetings and welcome to the Dividing Line on a Thursday afternoon, a very warm Thursday afternoon here in Phoenix, Arizona.

It is very rare that I see as the predicted high for the next day on my computer 120 degrees, but that is still what they're calling for for tomorrow.

Only a nice, relatively cool 113 today, and yes, but everyone says just dry, right?

Good to be back here. I thought it was hot in Berlin. We did have a heat wave, but the nice thing about heat waves in Berlin is that they only last for a couple days and they go away.

And it got up to 95 degrees in Berlin last Thursday. When you're teaching all day long and there's no air conditioning and it's 95 degrees, it's a heat.

There's no two ways about it. But there was a nice storm that rumbled through that night with lots of lightning and it got cooler and cooler every day after that.

So that was nice. We'll have a little more to say about that later on in a mega -sized edition of the

Dividing Line today. Two full hours, which I guess sort of makes up for not having been able to do a program on Tuesday since I actually got up at 7 o 'clock at night,

Monday night, at least Arizona time, and the entire next 24 hours spent driving, sitting, standing, running, or mainly just sitting on planes, flying from Berlin to Frankfurt, from Frankfurt to Philadelphia, and Philadelphia back to here in Phoenix, Arizona.

I am accumulating the miles, and next year we'll have a different color badge to wear as far as my frequent flyer status goes, let me tell you that.

We'll get all to that later on. I have seven topics on my list here.

The chances of getting to all of them are somewhat small, but we'll see. We might be able to get to them. I said yesterday morning when

I got up, I had sort of forgotten what yesterday was going to be as far as the

Supreme Court docket was concerned. And as a result, I got up and realized what was happening, and a little bit on the jet -lagged side.

And one of the tweets that I sent out after seeing the beginning of the announcements of the act,

I don't even want to call it decisions, because decision means that people actually examined the

Constitution and did so in light of what the founders intended, and every person on the planet knows that the founders of this nation would never have even considered the possibility that they had the right or the government of the

United States had the right to redefine the institution of marriage. There is not a single other

Founding Fathers that could have even believed that a nation that they were involved in suffering for and bringing about the beginnings of could ever engage in such activity.

It wouldn't have never crossed their minds. We all know that. I don't think anyone could argue against that.

It's obvious. There has been a massive cultural revolution, and in my opinion, the system is broken beyond repair.

I've quoted him many times. I don't have the quote right in front of me right now, but John Adams' statement that the

Constitution of the United States requires a religious and moral people, and we no longer have religious and moral people. We have an immoral, secular people, and I do not believe the

Constitution can function in that context. That's my personal opinion. You may believe as you wish on that particular subject.

I have nothing invested in that. But anyway, I tweeted, today is going to be a

Psalm 12 -8 day. I should have said this week, this month, is going to be a

Psalm 12 -8 day. And I guess in reality, when you think about it, given the behavior of those who are pushing for a leftist, secularist, anti -Christian worldview, it's just going to be a

Psalm 12 -8 lifetime. Psalm 12 -8, of course, says, "...the wicked strut about on every side, and what is vile is exalted among the sons of men."

And that is that when that which is vile becomes exalted, it becomes lifted up and seen to be something good, then the wicked strut about on every side.

Because you see, when a nation has the blessing of God, God's hand of restraint, there is such a thing as shame.

There is such a thing as recognition of good and evil. There's a reason why both good and evil have—especially evil, but you can't really define good without having some concept of evil.

These terms have passed from the standard utilization of people in our society.

Because we all know that in a secular society, there really isn't any way of defining these things. It's all just a matter of who has the most popular votes at that time.

That's what makes something good. And if you're in the minority, then that's what you believe is evil. There is no transcendent value to these words any longer.

They are transitionary terms. They change meaning from generation to generation, or not even generation to generation anymore.

They change meaning year by year. So fast is the redefinition of fundamental and foundational things.

And what we saw yesterday, in my opinion, was just simply the ratification of the fact that we do have a fully secular state in every aspect of our leadership that has no concern about the morality and ethics of the past, is in fact embarrassed by the morality and ethics of the past.

In fact, we had, in the majority opinion, the identification of the moral and ethical unanimous opinion of every generation that fought to preserve this nation and our freedom was identified as bigots, identified as people who were not for freedom, as immoral people.

And it was done without blushing. It was done without blushing. And yet, that's what took place.

And so, in light of Psalm 12, I found it interesting that before that statement, that incredibly insightful statement of Scripture, that when a culture and a people are given over to a love of evil things, then wicked strut about, and that means the good do not.

And that this is a judgment upon a land. Before that, these words were said at the beginning of Psalm 12,

Help Yahweh, for the godly man ceases to be. For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men.

They speak falsehood to one another. With flattering lips and with a double heart they speak. May Yahweh cut off all flattering lips, that tongue that speaks great things.

Who have said, with our tongue we will prevail. Our lips are our own.

Who is Lord over us? Did you catch that?

As we hear men spouting evil and calling it good, and degrading good and calling it evil, as we see the fulfillment of the description of Isaiah chapter 5, of woe to those who call evil good and good evil, light darkness and darkness light.

As we listen to the irrationality of the thought process of these individuals, the arbitrariness of their words, their unwillingness to actually engage in meaningful debate and dialogue as well.

As we hear these things, and we hear the abuse of that God -given gift of speech, and that's a

God -given gift. Have you thought about that? That is part of the Imago Dei. That is part of what makes us in the image of God, is we have the ability to communicate.

Nothing else on the planet can communicate like we do. Sure, some of the lower animals have rudimentary forms of communication, but that's nothing in comparison to the languages and the beauty of the communication that can come forth from the human mind.

And hence, obviously, the fall then impacts that. And it's the speech, it's the way we speak.

And listen to what verse four says, "...who have said, with our tongue we will prevail, our lips are our own.

Who is Lord over us?" Did you hear the rebel heart? Do you hear and see this very same thing happening across our land?

We will have no one to define marriage for us. Who is Lord over us? We are a secular nation.

We have no one over us. We just determine what is right for us.

We just take a vote or, well, in these days, there's just sort of one party that determines all this.

And we define these things and we're not going to be held accountable.

There's no judgment in the future. And so we can say what we want.

And we can take a God -ordained institution and we can redefine it if we jolly well want to and don't you dare tell us that this is an act of rebellion.

Well, it is. And it's our duty as Christians to identify it for what it is. It is an act of rebellion against God and it will bring

God's judgment. Now, God is very patient and God is very long -suffering, but he is patient and long -suffering primarily so that his people can be used in a prophetic way to bring the announcement of what sin is and the result of it.

And I really believe that, though I've said this many times before, with each one of these events, this is becoming more and more clear, more and more relevant.

Our role must be a prophetic one. And that means we must gird our minds, prepare our minds to function as prophets amongst the people.

And that might be a good idea for you to take some time to read the prophets to find out what their lives were like because they weren't easy.

I don't get the feeling, and I'm talking to myself here, I don't get the feeling that we have sufficient separation from love of the things of this world to be very good at this prophet stuff, but that's what our calling is now.

We live in a land where the vast majority of people do not bow the knee to the

Lordship of Jesus Christ. They do not give a second thought to what his will would be in their lives and that includes people in so -called churches.

We know this is the case, we've known it for a long time. And when this nation is willing to, in a high -handed act of rebellion, say to God, we don't care what you have said.

We don't care how you have blessed us. We don't care how you have guarded us. We don't care about how in World War II this nation went through that worldwide conflagration and oh yes, hundreds of thousands of people died, but they almost all, to the man, woman, and child died overseas.

We had no, we had no cities devastated by bombing. We had no

Dresdens, no Berlins, no Londons, no

Hiroshima's or Nagasaki's. Our land was untouched and God protected us and blessed us, not because we deserved it, but I unfortunately had some things go wrong this morning,

I didn't get time to do it. I was going to get the actual transcription of the words that the

President of the United States placed within the New Testaments that were given to all of the soldiers as they were going out to battle, where he commended them, the reading of these scriptures and things like that, just to compare it with the wildly different perspective today.

There has been a revolution. It has been not the kind of revolution you have in most

European states, but there has been a fundamental cultural revolution. There can be no question about it.

And we now have those in charge, I remember listening to FDR's prayer on the day of, just a few weeks ago, on the day of D -Day.

Could never happen today. Would never happen today. Would be sued if anyone tried it today.

My, how things have changed and what's been the result? Well it seems some people think that we're better off for it.

We're a better place. That's certainly what Barack Obama believes.

Yesterday there was a statement by the President on the Supreme Court ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act. This is from the whitehouse .gov

website. He says, I applaud the Supreme Court's decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act.

This was discrimination enshrined in law. Now remember this is discrimination he supported for political reasons.

Discrimination enshrined in law. Please keep that in mind because many people have pointed out that what that means is, since what

DOMA said was simply the majority, well, the view of every single president that has ever been in the

White House in the entirety of the history of the United States of America had been the view of every generation before this, is the view of, well, the history of mankind in regards to the definition of marriage, then this outrageously arrogant modern generation can actually stand up and say we are the only people in history that have ever gotten this right.

Everybody before us is a bunch of morons. Reminds me of the

Princess Bride. Remember Princess Bride? You know, morons. That's what this mindset of this modern generation is.

We are the only people who have ever figured out anything. This was discrimination enshrined in law.

It treated loving, committed gay and lesbian couples as a separate and lesser class of people. No, it actually defined marriage in its historical sense, its only meaningful sense.

And as I've said many times, and this is going to happen, the Supreme Court ruling has opened the door for this.

Just the next thing, folks, if there is not a polyamory polygamy case before the

Supreme Court within four years, I'll faint. It takes a while, but you know right now they're being filed.

You know right now the lawyers are tapping away on their word processors and they're being filed because the door was kicked wide open and everybody knows it.

And so just take gay and lesbian out and put in polygamous. And then after that, which will be first?

I think probably given the fact that there are already quote unquote scholarly psychiatric papers in journals identifying intergenerational love as a natural state of certain individuals, that'll probably be next.

Because bestiality, I don't know. Give it time. Give it time. Because the walls have come down.

And the fact of the matter is a secular state has no internal framework of ethics and morals upon which to rely.

It is an amorphous blob. And the only thing that it calls good and bad is just what it feels like at the time.

And so it's coming. And so it treated loving committed gay and lesbian couples as separate and lesser class of people.

No, it said that love is something different. Love has a meaning.

Marriage has a meaning. The word husband has a meaning. The word wife has a meaning. The word

Mary, the verb, because the direct object that has has a meaning. That's what it said. This is a shamelessly simplistic, false and misleading way of viewing things.

It is dishonest to its core. It's reprehensible morally and ethically.

The Supreme Court has righted that wrong and our country is better off for it.

We are a people who declared that we are all created equal and the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.

And so the love, quote unquote, between a woman and a woman is the same as that between a husband and wife.

That is an abomination. It is an abomination. It will always be an abomination. And no government, no court can possibly change that reality.

It is an abomination that brings a judgment of God. It is against all of nature.

It is against all of common sense. It is against the way that God has made us. And every single person knows it in their heart of hearts.

And the person who denies it is engaged in suppressing the knowledge of God in an act of rebellion. This ruling is a victory for couples who have long fought for equal treatment under the law.

This is the old equal treatment stuff. It's a lie. We've exposed this as a lie. But now it has just simply become repeated so often that people don't even think.

They do not even think. These people are not even honest enough to be willing to admit, hey, we just redefined marriage.

No. They won't even face up to the reality of what they've done for children whose parents' marriages will now be recognized.

Excuse me. Excuse me, Mr. President, sir. Two men can't have children.

Two women can't have children. They don't produce children. Hello. Have you noticed that?

Well, OK, what we mean is in adopted. OK, so you want it. You want it.

But what you're forcing upon us is this idea that, well, you know. There are just so many different kinds of families.

Yeah. I guess Jesus didn't get that memo in Matthew chapter 19, did he?

Rightly, as legitimate for families that at long last, we get the respect and protection they deserve and for friends and supporters who want nothing more than to see their loved ones treated fairly and have worked hard to persuade their nation to change for the better.

So if you stand against this, folks, you you're evil. You're trying you're trying to keep this nation in a worse state.

That's what it's all about. So we welcome today's

I'm going to skip on that on an issue as sensitive as this, knowing that Americans hold a wide range of views based on deeply held beliefs.

Now, he's already identified our beliefs as evil. He's already identified this is for the better. If you disagree, then you're for the good.

You're not for the better. You're for the worse. So how do you hold you've said that the law enshrined discrimination?

Now, of course, again, the abuse of the term discrimination, discrimination means to make a decision.

And we all discriminate. He is discriminated in saying that our views are for the worse, that our views are bad.

That's discrimination. Oh, well, that's not how I know you don't use words accurately.

You use words in such a way that that you create emotional impact rather than actually communicate truthful content.

I know that's that's that's the way of the the politician. And that's that's what's effective in leading people and leading sheeple instead of people on an issue as sensitive as this, knowing that Americans hold a wide range of views based on deeply held beliefs, maintaining our nation's commitment to religious freedom is also vital.

Folks, have you gotten the idea that there's always this. This statement and that it means absolutely, positively nothing.

Have we seen enough of this now, have we seen what happened in Massachusetts, have we we've seen what's been happening in Europe? Get a clue.

They throw this in here just to numb you so that when the anvil falls on your head, it's too late.

The left does not care one lick about religious freedom. They want power, period, end of discussion.

And we'll pursue it at all costs. How religious institutions define and consecrate marriage has always been up to those institutions.

Nothing about this decision, which applies only to civil marriages, changes that. Wait till the first lawsuit is brought.

Ask ask the guy who took pictures of marriages in New Mexico and and yeah, sure. You just wait.

You just wait. The whole reason this kind of thing is put in here again is because they know this is where it's going to go.

They know it. And they want it. That's exactly what they want. The final sentence, amazingly sad.

The laws of our land are catching up to the fundamental truth that millions of Americans hold in our hearts when all

Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are, whom they love. We are all more free.

We are all more free. Our lips are our own, who is lord over us.

With our tongue, we will prevail. We are free. Only true freedom is to live in the way that God designed mankind to live.

This is not freedom. This is slavery. Slavery to sin, destruction of the goodness, the good things that God has given to us.

Marriage is a good thing. Family is a good thing. It made this nation strong, made this nation capable of doing what it did in the last century and being important in the victory in the

First World War and absolutely central to the victory of the second over very evil forces.

It was the strong families that we had that produced those generations. But a nation that cannot so much as even define what a family is, is a nation that has certainly lost the blessing of God, certainly lost the blessing of God.

It is an amazing thing. As Christians, we must redouble our efforts to educate our children and our children's children about what marriage really is, what a covenant is, what it means to sacrifice for the love of another, to be changed by the love of another, and what the complementary nature of marriage involves, man and woman, and how we are changed by that.

And we must be concentrated upon preparing ourselves and our spouses and our children and our families and our churches for the cost that will be asked of us to remain faithful and to speak the truth to a nation clearly intent upon its own self -destruction.

The more we love our things, the harder this is going to be for us.

And I'm speaking to myself there. I truly am. There is a related article.

Yesterday, the National Cathedral is peeling its church bells along with some other

Washington churches to celebrate the Supreme Court's decision on gay marriage. Cathedral spokesman

Richard Weinberg said the bells rang at noon Wednesday for 45 minutes to an hour.

Bells also rang at other Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Unitarian, and other Christian churches.

The cathedral scheduled prayer service for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender families Wednesday at 7 p .m.

to celebrate the ruling. In a statement, the cathedral's dean, the

Reverend Gary Hall, says the church is ringing its bells to celebrate the extension of federal marriage equality to all the same -sex couples modeling

God's love in lifelong covenant. One of the greatest signs of God's judgment upon our land is the number of false

Christians, people who call themselves Christians but who have absolutely no respect whatsoever for God's truth and God's word.

None at all. None at all. What an absolute insult.

What a statement on the part of the National Cathedral that we don't care about you believers.

You can stay out. We don't want you here anyway. Just go away. Somewhat foreshadowing what we are heading into at warp speed, on June 24th an article

FoxNews .com, the Colorado Civil Rights Division has ruled an elementary school discriminated against, y 'all sitting down, against a transgender six -year -old child by barring her from using the girls' bathroom.

KDVR reports the New York -based Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund announced the ruling

Sunday and said they would hold a news conference Monday to explain the decision in the case of Coy Mathis, who was born a boy but identifies as a girl.

The fund filed the complaint on behalf of the child's parents Catherine and Jeremy Mathis, claiming that Coy has been discriminated against at Eagleside Elementary School, which is south of Colorado Springs.

Catherine Mathis said in a statement the family is thrilled that Coy can return to school and put this behind her.

Coy, who had attended the school since kindergarten, had been allowed to use the girls' restroom until December 2012,

Reuters reports. The school's principal informed the child's parents that after the holiday break, Coy must either use the boys' restroom or a gender -neutral one.

This is... he's six years old, folks. Six years old in elementary school.

Her parents withdrew Coy from the school. In February, they filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division. The division's report said the

Fountainfort Carson School District violated the state law that extends protections to transgender people, according to Reuters.

Given the evolving research and the development of transgender persons, compartmentalizing a child as a boy or girl, solely based on their visible anatomy, is a simplistic approach to a difficult and complex issue, the report said.

You see, when God withdraws his hand of blessing, simple common sense disappears.

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. Michael Silverman, executive director of the

Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, which filed the complaint, tells Reuters, this ruling sends a loud and clear message that transgender students may not be targeted for discrimination and that it must be treated equally in school.

It also sends a very loud and clear message that the school system is filled with morons on the ethical level.

So, if you don't like the idea that your young lady is going to have to go in the bathroom with boys, well, you just don't understand.

You just don't understand. I mean, you just need to read more psychiatric papers, that's all.

The Mathis family has since moved to Denver and Koi plans to attend a school there from now on. KDVR. Absolutely.

Positively. Amazing. And sometimes you just don't even know what to say.

You don't even know what to say. All right, well, everybody knew that I would talk about that to start and almost talked about yesterday.

Decided to let the initial shock of the whole situation pass, but what can

I say? What can I say? I wanted, and until yesterday was going to begin this program, to start off with just a very heartfelt thanks to everyone involved in the trip that I just took.

It was one of the most wonderful trips I've had. I was gone for a very long time, longer than I normally allow myself to be gone for.

I sort of feel like I have a certain limit to how long I can be gone before I start sort of falling apart physically, but despite some of the challenges, including probably right up there with one of the worst travel days

I've ever had, the trip started off really badly. I was supposed to be in Boston at like four or five o 'clock in the afternoon.

We're going to have dinner, have time to work on a chapter, blah blah blah. I got to bed in Plymouth, Pilgrim Country down there, at 2 .15

a .m. on Saturday, having been on the runway next to takeoff, and then we just turned off the runway.

And I'm glad we did, because they couldn't get the brakes off. So, you know, you sort of need those brake things to work when you land on the other side of the country, you know.

But then it all started, and I ended up booked on a flight, reaccommodated on a flight, that I didn't realize this, but was going to give me a nice tour of our beautiful country, in essence.

They forgot to tell me that I was going through Chicago, so instead of a nice straight flight to Boston, I flew from Phoenix to Chicago, Chicago to Philadelphia, Philadelphia to Boston.

And all the way, figuring that, well, so much for ever seeing my luggage again. And this is the beginning of a two -week trip, including going overseas.

And the amazing thing is, despite the fact I had to run, because we got stuck on the runway in Chicago for over an hour, waiting for a gate to open, so then we were delayed in getting in.

And my connecting flight out of Philadelphia to Boston was supposed to go at 10 .45. Thankfully, it was delayed to 11.

If it had gone at 10 .45, we never would have made it, because we landed at like 10 .50. When we landed, I had 12 minutes to get from Concourse B to C.

Not too bad, but, you know, it's a ways. Of course, there wasn't a gate agent to open the door. So we just stood there, and we stood there.

And I could see my plane across the way. I could see they were boarding. By the time the door opened, I had five minutes to get from Concourse B to Concourse C and get on that flight.

And when I travel, I've got my iPad and my

Kindle and my MacBook Pro and adapters and all this stuff in my backpack. So it is very heavy.

And so I've got my carry -on and that, and I'm running from B to C.

I was, of course, the very last person on the plane. But I did make it.

And, of course, by this point, I have completely abandoned all hope for my luggage, which was initially put on a canceled flight and all the rest of this stuff.

And now I've got, you know, five minutes between flights in Philadelphia. So it's like, I get to,

I get to Boston, and I go to the, you know, I've got at least go and look. And lo and behold, my main bag got there before me.

It took a better flight than I did. A significantly less circuitous route in getting to Boston than I did.

And then my second bag somehow, somehow made it on that flight and even got across the tarmac in the time

I was running from one. They got, they got it over there somehow. Kudos to them. Thank you very much.

But so I got to Boston. We had a nice conference there. The folks are very kind.

I, you know, I ain't much of a draw, so we didn't have a really big group, but the folks that were there were very kind and seemed to really enjoy the presentation as I gave it.

Again, it was my New Testament Reliability one. And people really enjoy that presentation. They really, really do. It's one thing to see it online.

It's another thing to see it in person where I can interact. And, you know, the pictures are easy to see and stuff like that. And so then

I had to fly from Boston to Philadelphia, Philadelphia to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Berlin. That was actually very easy.

It really was. You know, going that direction is harder than coming back because you gain, you know, you lose nine hours going one direction.

You gain nine hours coming back the other direction. But I only had to go through security once to get from Boston to Berlin.

And when you go over there, you know, when you fly back here from overseas, you got to go to, you got to go pick up your luggage, drag your luggage 20 yards, recheck it back in, go through all this rigmarole.

I just, I just flew to Berlin. You know, I just, just went from one gate to the other, flew to Berlin, picked up my luggage.

I was there. That was it. Didn't have any cars to fill out. It was so much easier going over there than it is coming back.

Just the rigmarole that we have coming back is absurd. But anyhow,

I got over there and I was teaching for the week at the

European Biblical Training Center, which is associated with the Master's Academies International of John MacArthur's church.

And I had been there last year. I had spoken just briefly, though. I had met with the, with the staff and then

I had spoken with translation. Matthias was my translator then, and he was most of the time, this time over, in German.

And then a live Russian translation that they had, live streamed. And some of you may recall that.

And so I was teaching a textual criticism class. And I love that subject, but I've never taught it as just a single, just a class unto itself.

And so on Monday, when the class starts, I discover it has a fascinating makeup.

Fascinating makeup. We have one fellow from Poland, one fellow from Czechoslovakia.

We had one fellow from Dresden, who was sort of auditing the class.

An attorney. A brilliant fellow. And so it was funny because sometimes

I'd start reading an article. This is from such -and -such a book. Not sure if it's online or anything like that. And, you know, three minutes later, he'd turn his computer on.

Here it is. And he'd, you know, give the URL to everybody else. So much so that I eventually dubbed him

The Internet. So I just started calling him The Internet because evidently his legal work involves doing a lot of looking for stuff.

So evidently he is a Google Meister. But he contributed a lot to the program as well.

And I really appreciated that. And I have a feeling he's probably listening right now. If not, will be, because I got the feeling he listens to The Dividing Line fairly frequently.

But then there were all the guys sitting up front. Now a couple of the guys, some of the staff came in for some of it.

Greg from the European Seminary in Kiev was there with his son. His son's name is

James Robert White, which I found interesting. But he's 18, so they know they had no idea who

I was back then. But sitting up front, wearing these, they were infrared earphones.

So they had to always be pointed toward this one, you know, infrared type thing.

So multiple people could be hearing the same thing. Was a whole group of guys.

And I tweeted this picture at some point. And one thing we got to do once the new website, you know, finally emerges into daylight sometime between now and 2020, is the

Twitter feed has got to be on the front page someplace. We've just got to have that. Because that's what

I use to communicate with folks now. I really do. I mean, you know, maybe

WordPress is going to be easy enough that I can, you know, but it's just a pain to do it the way we do.

I just use Twitter. So I tweeted the picture of the brethren from the

Ukraine. And off to the right in the room, this is sort of the overflow room to the main church because EBTC meets at a church facility.

So this classroom is sort of the overflow room to the main church room. And then over the side is sort of the nursery.

But they've set it up to where you can close the door and there's a window there. And I'm wearing a microphone and so there is a fellow by the name of Nick.

And Nick is sitting in that room and he is listening to me over my microphone.

And he is live translating for the Ukrainian brothers. Now folks, this is a textual criticism class.

That's not simplistic vocabulary. That is technical vocabulary. And we are going from 830 in the morning to 415 in the afternoon.

Now there's a, you know, brief break for lunch, but it is a long, long day.

Very long day. I would expect Nick to come crawling out of that room after four hours, but he never did.

I mean, the guy blew me away with his ability to be able to do that. I mean, to be listening to me and then off into, for that amount of time, absolutely amazing.

And I could tell those brothers were focused like a laser beam. What was so encouraging, and please don't get upset with me when

I say this, those of you in the, you know, in the American audience, but there was just something different about teaching these guys.

They, I didn't have to pull teeth. They want to learn. Eugene, one of the guys, sharp, sharp guy.

Oh my goodness. I mean, I can tell this guy knows his stuff. Young fella, the morning of the first class, while he was there, his wife gave birth to their fourth child.

Getting from Kiev to Berlin is, you know, a bit of a challenge at times.

And it just, the appreciation they had for the topic, the fact that I had traveled to be there, the fact that I'm passionate about it, and the comment was made a number of times, this is, this is the advantage, this is one of the reasons

I love teaching. I can take difficult topics and make them really interesting because I've done so many interesting things, especially in this field.

And in fact, the internet, our brother from Dresden, was it on Wednesday, I think?

Is it a Tuesday or Wednesday? I forget which one it was. He said, I made mention of the fact, I said, man,

I'd really like to show you the debates I did in London with Adnan Rashid, and, you know, it'd be really nice to be able to show you that stuff.

And so I come in one morning, he says, oh, by the way, your first debate with Adnan Rashid is on YouTube. And I said, it is?

And so he shows it to me. And so I pulled it up and downloaded it, and we had a 90 -minute segment, it's a 90 -minute long debate, so we said, here, this is the ultimate way of expressing how

I would, in a brief period of time, present this subject within an apologetic context, because there has been an apologetic element to this class dealing with textual criticism.

I mean, we went all through the Åland Åland book. We dealt with everything from manuscripts to printed editions of the

Greek New Testament, how to evaluate textual variance, the whole nine yards, but also dealing with Ehrman and the whole shift in the textual critical perspective and all the rest of that stuff.

We dealt with all of it. And it was just awesome.

That's just the only way to put it. It was just awesome. Obviously, one of the things I wanted to have happen did happen, and that was the best way to learn a language is to live in a country.

There's just no question about it. And I took three years of German in high school and one year in college.

May have been two years in college, but I think it was just one. But if you don't use it, you lose it.

That's just all there is to it. And so my hope was that I would be around enough German to start knocking the rust off.

Well, it was true. That is what happened, even though the live translation, which I really couldn't hear, was into Russian.

Still, I stayed with Christian Andersen and his his wife and daughters.

They're home there. They live in what used to be East Berlin, Eastern Germany, you know, before the wall fell, etc.

etc. And it is fascinating to see, you know, the architecture and what was built during the communist period and what's being now torn down and rebuilt to a much higher quality standard and things like that.

But the German started coming back and it was enjoyable to interact with people and my vocabulary started coming back.

I was just sitting in my room one day and all of a sudden a word popped in my mind. Lieblingsfarbe.

Lieblingsfarbe. And I went, oh, favorite color. Now, I probably had not thought of Lieblingsfarbe, which means favorite color, since,

I don't know, probably my senior year in high school, which would have been 1981.

But it just all of a sudden, you know, I don't know, because I had seen it on something. I mean, they gave me a beautiful German Bible, which

I actually spoke from on Saturday morning when I spoke to a chapel service. And I actually just used the

German text, which is scary, but it worked out pretty well. And so I was, you know, looking at that.

I don't know what it was, but it was, it's really neat and it's, Rich has already discussed it about it because I'll walk to the door here at the office and just start babbling in German and he just looks at me like, this is really, how long is this gonna last, really, honestly.

Well, given that they want me to come back and teach regularly, I'm afraid it's a permanent thing. Just, just get used to it. I would suggest buying a

German phrasebook and just, just get a couple of the good morning things, just a few of the things, so you can just, it might impress your wife and things like that too.

So, though you are French ancestry, which you probably don't like German at all, but of course the

Germans won most of the time. But anyhow, so then, then after the class was over, on Friday I had a marathon day from eight o 'clock in the morning until eight o 'clock at night, literally.

And this time it was with live translation where I have to stop and start. And folks, if you're a preacher, can you imagine what it'd be like to have to stop every sentence or even just divide sentences while you're preaching.

Your cadence is gone, we all have a cadence, we all have a flow. The first time

I preached with translation was outside of Sao Paulo in 2003 and I just wanted to go home after the first time.

I felt like it was a complete disaster. It was one of the hardest things I ever did. I've gotten better,

I've gotten better, and when I preached Sunday morning, I preached at both a Russian service and a

German service and I actually found that it was easier to preach at the

Russian service. Why? Because I don't know a word of Russian. And so when the kind brother who is translating for me is talking,

I have no idea what he's saying, but on Saturday or Friday, Matthias was translating for me and I would hear what he was saying.

And so instead of keeping in mind the next thought that I wanted to say, I'm hearing him talking and two things happen.

First of all, I'd get distracted by that. And sometimes, I forget what it was, there was a specific example.

It was really humorous. I had used a specific example and when he translated it, he didn't use the same example

I did. And so I just stopped and I said to him, Ich hab nicht gesagt das.

I forget what it was I specifically said. And so I just responded to him in German and said, that's not what

I said. I said this. And everybody started laughing because I'm saying it to him in German. And so then whenever I'd speak in German, he would have to translate back in English in case there was anybody who could only understand

English in the group. And so that would distract me. But then a couple times on Friday, I'd say something, he translates it, and then the next thing, without my even trying to do it, instead of saying it in English, I said it in German.

Which would throw him off. And I didn't realize what I was doing. I thought of the next phrase in German rather than in English and said it in German rather than English.

And so sometimes we were sort of switching back and forth. Which is funny because the family I stayed with, they did it all the time.

They're all bilingual. Most of them are trilingual. And they would, in one conversation, be going back and forth between English, because they've lived both the

United States and in Germany. So they're equally proficient with both languages. And I could not even figure out what would cause one sentence to be in English and one sentence to be in German.

I can never figure it out. So it was fascinating.

But it was a long, long day. And I did not realize it was going to be live -streamed.

So I sent Rich a text or an email or something like, I think it was right at 5 a .m.

your time. And I've already been teaching for hours at that point, saying, hey, didn't know this, but it's being live -streamed.

If we could throw it up on the web, maybe someone might watch and stuff. And what was really cool is, you must have thrown it on Facebook immediately, because Summer saw it.

And so I get this email from Summer saying, Clementine is watching you on the web, teaching in English and German.

And so I said, send me a picture, send me a picture. And so she sends me this picture of Clementine in her bouncy chair.

And here's the Mac sitting in front of her. She's smiling because she's watching Grandpa teaching in Germany in her bouncy chair.

And so I put that up on the screen at the beginning of the next session. I said, I just want to introduce you to some of the audience we have outside of Germany here.

Unfortunately, Summer lost her feed right before that happened, so she didn't get to see that. But anyways, it was really, really cool that was going on back here.

And then, like I said, on Saturday I spoke at the chapel in the morning. And then in the evening, the graduation ceremony, preached twice on Sunday.

And then I was done as far as the hard work went. But then I had asked

Christian, I said, you know, if I stayed over a day, just one day over, last time we were there we had gone to Sachsenhausen, which is basically

Hitler's private concentration camp outside of Berlin. There's just so much to see there.

And I'm normally not a sightseer. People have to drag me out. But it's

Europe, for crying out loud. It's Berlin. And so he had said, well, yeah, we could go see

Hohenschönhaus. Now, Hohenschönhaus is the

Stasi secret prison. The Stasi were the East German secret police. Starting in 1945, the Russians opened it.

It was a functioning secret prison from 1945 until 1990.

The day of reunification, it went out of action. But right up to 45 years.

And if you looked at maps that time period, it was just a big hole. There was nothing there.

No one knew what it was. The West guessed that there was something going on there, but they didn't know what it was.

And the thing that was so, it was actually more depressing for me to visit the

Stasi secret prison than it was to see

Sachsenhausen. Because you could be taken there in the 90s.

This was going on in the 1980s. This is my life. It's one thing to look at a concentration camp and my parents were kids when that was happening.

And that it sort of, I don't know, just changes the chronological stuff. But there were people,

Christians, political prisoners, in these cells when

I was in high school undergoing horrific psychological torture, especially.

They designed this place so that you had no idea where you were.

No earthly idea where you were. They showed us one of the vans they would use. And they used the same type of vans that bakeries would use or that would be used all through East Germany for just commercial stuff.

But they designed them and marked them as bakery trucks and stuff like that. So you get stuck in this thing and you drive around, drive around, drive around, and when you get out you have no earthly idea where you are.

And they designed the whole thing, the whole thing, so that your entire time in that place the only person you saw was your guard and your interrogator.

You never saw another prisoner. Never saw another prisoner.

They even had, they even showed us the light system they had set up. So if one prisoner was coming then you put another prisoner in the cell and then the light would go from red to green and then you could bring another prisoner.

So that you never ever saw another prisoner. You were just alone in this place.

They had a place called the U -Boat section that looked like a

U -Boat. And these teeny tiny little, because they used sleep deprivation, the light was always always on.

It was just, oh. And many times the people who will take you through are people who had themselves been tortured there.

This guy that took us through the English language one didn't, wasn't himself in the

Stasi prison. And according to Christian you got more information because of that. Because while it was more, there would be an interest in someone who had been tortured there telling you about their experiences, this was my cell, etc.

etc. They didn't tend to have as much of the background information, this guy did. And Christian said he learned a lot more going through this time than he had at times past with those folks.

But it was, like I said, about the only way

I could say is it's not really depressing, sobering. Once again a reminder of the foolhardiness, the direction that many of our nations are going today.

Folks, as Christians we don't trust governments. Why? Because they're made up of sinners.

And when you concentrate power amongst sinners, what do they do? They sin. And they use their power over others.

And here was an absolute totalitarian state. There's a movie they made about this place called

The Lives of Others. I wish they hadn't thrown a couple scenes in. You know, it's a secular movie, just beware of that.

But it just illustrated the totalitarian nature.

You know, there was no privacy, there was no part of your life that did not belong to the government.

If they just wanted to snatch you off the street and stick you in this place for the rest of your life, or just make you disappear, it did not matter.

And there was a room they showed us. Especially once you got into the 70s and 80s that, you know, the world was looking at East Germany.

And East Germany wanted to be able to, you know, compete in the Olympics and do stuff like that and look like they're wonderful and great and good and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

And so it would be hard to take your political dissidence and just make them disappear. They found other ways of doing it.

One of the ways that they did it is they showed us this room where they would take your picture. And a number of the prisoners reported having sat in this room for hours on end, they just left you there.

And you could not get out of the chair. And they reported hearing this buzzing sound.

What they've discovered is what they did, is while you're sitting in that chair, behind you in the cabinet, is an x -ray machine.

And they're irradiating you. Six months to a year later, your political prisoners die of cancer and leukemia.

Oh, what a shame. But it wasn't our fault, right? No, because they had zapped them there in those seats.

I mean, just amazing stuff. Absolutely amazing stuff. And that's what

I saw on Monday. And then, long flight home on Tuesday.

But mainly uneventful, though it scared me to death in Philadelphia. We were next to take off.

And we pulled off again. And I'm like, ah, no, no.

But it was a weather hold. And we sat there for about half an hour. And then they finally let us off so we could fly through the storm.

Bouncing all over. That was one of the most turbulent flights I've ever had. I come from Philadelphia to Phoenix.

I mean, all the way into Phoenix. It was just a bum -ba -dum -ba -dum -ba -dum. It was fun.

But when you've been in the air for that many hours, it was over eight hours from Frankfort to Philly. And then about five hours, more than five hours, once we sat in the thing.

And so it was a long day. Good to be home. But last thing, since we need to finish the travelogue up and we'll take a break here at the bottom of the hour, give me a chance to drink some water or something.

I met Greg White there. He was taking the class from me. And he's involved with the

European Seminary in Kiev, Ukraine, where those men were from. And after meeting them and sensing their hearts,

I may drop Nick a line and see if Nick can translate this for them.

They were just so incredibly encouraging to me. I don't know how to explain it.

Their spirit, their attitude. My heart was knit to these guys.

To all of them. To Radek from the all of them.

They were just, it was a special class. The Lord really blessed our time together.

And I'm looking forward to seeing their papers. Each one of them had to choose a textual variant and they need to interpret all the sigla and so on and so forth.

I'm looking forward to seeing their papers. They're due, I think, next week, if I recall. Anyway, but once we started talking, they're like, so, do you think you might ever, ever come to Kiev?

We'd love to have you come teach church history because I've been talking a lot about church history. And the first class

I ever taught when I got a seminary was church history. When I was scholar in residence at Grand Canyon University. I was 19, 91.

Yeah. 91. And I'm like, you know what?

You bet. You bet. Let's do it. Let's do it. And if I wasn't already booked up for the fall,

I mean, you know, Johannesburg, South Africa, places like that. I would,

I'd go over there this fall, but right now it looks like I Lord willing and we can make everything work and and help out ourselves with some of the transportation because, you know, it's one thing to go to Berlin.

They have a little more support in Berlin than they do in Kiev. But we're looking at middle of February, middle of February next year, fly over to Kiev in Ukraine and teach church history.

Well, actually we're talking about that right now. Uh, if I just really want to kill myself in the sense of just teaching for hours and hours on end, then

I could do both a class on church history and then one on the

Trinity, maybe split it up to where the morning is on church history, the afternoons on the Trinity or vice versa or something along those lines.

Uh, but I could teach two classes, um, which would be enjoyable as well.

So we'll see. We'll see what we decide on that. But, uh, definitely said, yeah, yeah, let's do it.

I would love to meet the rest of the guys and, uh, just return a little something from what the

Lord's allowed me to learn and, uh, bless others because, uh, that's what we do all this stuff. So Lord willing, heading for Kiev in February in Kiev.

I'm going to be looking for some warm clothing come Christmas, I think, because I don't think

I have anything, uh, living in Phoenix that would really quite cut it, uh, in, uh, in Kiev in, uh, in February, even in February.

Cause there's also a January class. I'm like, nah, I don't think so. I'd be a little, I'd be pushing a little bit, but, uh, so that's, uh, that's the plan.

And I'm really, really, really looking forward to that. And again, a chance to get back to Berlin, uh, could be a yearly to, uh, to every other yearly trip.

And I would be more than happy to do that. I love teaching and love sharing what I've learned over the years.

And it's exciting to do. So there's why we didn't have any dividing lines last week. I was going to try to sneak one in, but I got invited out to do something and it just, that's just how it worked out.

So, um, maybe next time we will be able to sneak some in, but all right, let's take a, take a break. Come back.

You're on the dividing line. No excuses.

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Thank you. Breaking news from the

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I think same -sex couples should be able to get married. The NAACP has passed a resolution endorsing gay marriage as a civil right.

This comes two weeks after the announced his support for same -sex marriage. Under the guise of tolerance, our culture today grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.

Anyone opposing or questioning this today is quickly shouted down, called a bigot, a homophobe, a hate monger, threatened and accused of discrimination.

It's become commonplace to see people who take a biblical stand against homosexuality ostracized to the point of losing their job.

How soon will it be before we will also see people losing their freedom? Now more than ever, Christians need to be equipped to be an approved workman of God, correctly dividing the word of truth, as we are told in 2

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And don't forget to search for other resources like debates and past dividing lines dealing with this very provocative issue.

And remember, theology matters. And welcome back to the

Dividing Line on a mega edition. We've already gone through a little over an hour's worth of the program.

Next up on the list of things to be discussed, going from the sublime to the ridiculous, unfortunately.

As most of you are aware of the fact that, evidently,

Ergin Kanner has decided to go on the I Am Pure as the

Driven Snow tour. Of course, while going on this tour, he will still

Kannerize all his sermons, which means they won't be recorded and posted online and things like that. But we documented a few months ago, well, maybe what, six weeks ago, something along those lines, we documented that he was tweeting that he has been exonerated, that three different schools have examined him and exonerated him, and he denies categorically all charges against him.

He's never lied about anything. He is pure as the driven snow.

And at that time, we pointed out to folks, you know, don't you remember back in 2010, oh, somewhere around May, June, when

Ergin Kanner's supporters were talking about, you people, you're so unforgiving.

He said he was sorry. Didn't you see that statement he had on his blog for like a week?

And then it disappeared, where he said he was sorry. Well, what he said he was sorry for was misidentifying

Shabir Ali. He never told us who he did debate in Nebraska, because, of course, he didn't debate anybody in Nebraska.

And it had nothing to do with everything else that had been discovered after that, which included the entire lie about being raised in Turkey and born in Istanbul and trained in madrasas and in Istanbul and Cairo and Beirut and debating imams and mosques in Arabic and the whole

Kanner persona, which he repeated over and over and over again over multiple years, which was all one big fat lie.

But, oh, we were told that we were being unforgiving, because he had said he was sorry.

Well, I wonder what those supporters are saying now. Well, they're keeping their mouths shut.

They won't say a thing, obviously. Because now he's on the,

I am pure as the driven snow. I want to get back to doing what I was doing all along. I want to be able to be who

I was. I think he wants out of Arlington, personally. I think he he absolutely is starving for the adoration of those big crowds of kids that just think he is

Superman, that he's a WWF wrestler. So part of his, evidently, part of his campaign is build around recognition that, you know, it's sort of hard to get away with this when there's still so much documentation out there.

And so we've documented over the years, and it started back in 2010. During those months where further developments were coming up and we were finding more and more sermons, we mentioned then, well, we found this sermon, but wow, it seems to have disappeared.

Wow, this church has taken this sermon down. Wow, this link's dead now, too. How did that happen?

And so the process began years ago of trying to purge the net. So, of course, we started, you know, making sure to download anything that we were going to review and have archived copies and things like that.

You can never really purge the net. You know, the net has a long memory, a very long memory.

And that process has been ongoing.

And I mentioned to you a few weeks ago that I received notification from YouTube that one of my videos, now some people have had their almost their entire sites taken down.

Moses Model, I think, is the name of one of the channels on YouTube. That entire site whacked.

But only one of mine was taken down. It was from a 2006 apologetics conference.

And I'm not sure why that one was chosen. You know, Rich said that when you look at it, it's just devastating because,

I mean, all his lies are there. They're clearly not misstatements. And, of course, I was dealing with this within a context.

The excuse at that time was, well, these are just misstatements.

These are just misstatements. Ergin talks fast.

Well, it was so painfully obvious, so painfully obvious that these were not misstatements.

These were purposeful. And by the way, they directly parallel the statements that he made to the Marines. So this was over the course of multiple months, years, telling the same lies over and over and over again, purposefully, intentionally.

The word lie has no meaning. If these are not lies, it should be struck from the dictionary because it's irrelevant.

And so before I headed to Germany, we talked to people, and I did what you had to do to say, nope, this is fair use if there ever was fair use.

It is a short video. It's less than 10 minutes long, as I recall. It only shows those portions of his presentation that establish context.

I have him say something. I put up on the screen. This was not one of them where I was sitting in my—most of them, and I think maybe this is why they weren't picked on, is

I was sitting in my office responding back to what he was saying. Or, I mean,

I would think that the one they'd want down is the one that Issam and I did, just demonstrating to the nth degree the lies of this man, claiming to speak

Arabic. And the articles, which still appear on the Norman Geisel website, I looked at them today.

They're still linked on his website. You can find them. You have to look a little bit, but they're there. They're under tributes. Tributes to Eric Garner.

I found that just slightly ironic. But anyway, those lie sheets admit that he doesn't speak

Arabic. So here we are, and we're showing him claiming to speak Arabic and demonstrating that, of course, he can't.

This is TBN tongues Arabic, okay? You know, that kind of thing.

I'm sorry, Rich. I'm not talented. I was never given training in how to do that. No, I cannot raise my hands to do that.

Don't even ask me to. Forget it. Not a part of my experience in any way, shape, or form. So it was

TBN tongues Arabic. It was silly. So this one, I would stop and start, and I would just use text on the screen to point out the various lies and then ask the question at the end, how many times can you say a misstatement before it becomes a lie?

Just the obvious reality. Well, so I filed the response, and we're not exactly sure how to count days and stuff like that, but it should be back up in a...

I haven't even looked. I mean, to be honest with you, I've got so much... You have? Yeah, okay. I just...

Going to teach a handful of guys from the

Ukraine is so much more important to me than all this stupidity of Ergenkanner's trying to promote himself as something he's never been.

It just bugs me to no end I even have to talk about this stuff, but we have to. It is the state of the church, unfortunately.

Well, while I'm in Germany, I discovered that Ergenkanner not only is willing to lie through his teeth continuously while claiming to be a

Christian, but he also doesn't concern himself too much about biblical commands such as, do not take another believer to court before unbelievers.

He has filed a lawsuit against Jason Smathers, specifically about the

Marine videos. Now, this is information that was obtained through a

Freedom of Information Act request, and here's this guy, again, lying to the

United States Marines, claiming to be a jihadist, claiming to be able to give them insight into the mind of a jihadist.

Oh my goodness. Any man with a conscience, once he'd been exposed in this way, would have done everything in his power to contact those

Marines, and especially that colonel, and to apologize for such outlandish behavior.

And what does Kanner do? He sues to have those suppressed, claiming copyright.

Again, what do you say? What kind of person who claims to be a

Christian can throw the biblical mandate out the window and engage in this kind of activity?

Kanner defenders? Really? Seriously? You're still standing with this guy?

Honestly? Folks at Arlington, hello?

Leadership, you guys there? Do you realize what your, what is it, what is the academic vice president guy is doing?

And then, if that wasn't bad enough, then you've got

Peter Lumpkins. Oh my goodness. Who, what, yesterday, day before yesterday, writes a hit piece against Jason Smathers because Jason Smathers has a record.

Yep, yep. Evidently, Peter Lumpkins has never heard of this such were some of you stuff, this redemption idea in the

Bible. I guess he was spending too much time on the, you know, no alcohol part of the Bible.

But instead of dealing, you know, I would, the only, the only thing that could possibly get me to have a scintilla of respect for Peter Lumpkins is if he were to write an article calling

Ergon Kanner to account for his lies. But he won't do that.

Instead, he writes hit pieces against the people who are being sued by Ergon Kanner. Hello? Seriously?

Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. If someone had told me this could happen, you know, just three years ago,

I was like, I wouldn't believe it. I would have believed that people like Norman Geisler and Veritas Seminary and the

Calvary Chapel movement, that these people would have stepped up and done the right thing.

The evidence is so abjectly overwhelming. But no.

No, I very much underestimate, underestimated, and continue to underestimate the power of the good old boys network and how many people there are in quote -unquote

Christian service who aren't concerned one whit about the truth of the gospel, the veracity of the gospel, adorning the gospel with good works.

Doesn't matter. I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine. Yeah, it's amazing.

It's amazing. Ergon Kanner is waging a one -man jihad against ministry to Muslims.

The one thing he says he is so passionate about is the one thing he's proving over and over again he doesn't care a lick about.

What an amazing, amazing thing. An amazing thing.

Hey, I just saw something in channel that actually if this is breaking, is this breaking news?

An appeals court reversed a lower court decision saying the Christian owners of Hobby Lobby can fight implementation of a healthcare law requiring employers to pay for types of contraceptives that they believe are abortions.

Yay! Yay! After yesterday, it's nice to have some good news along those lines.

That's wonderful to hear. Okay, I'm going to get through it all.

I am actually going to get through it all today because the last two things that I have on my docket today is

I want to get back to some of the materials that we have been reviewing on the program since it has been quite some time.

I've only got, I'm only gonna be able to do about 15 minutes each, but that's okay.

I want to, I'll spend about 15 minutes here getting back to the Calvinist call -in show with Michael Brown.

Michael got himself into some hot water this past week with a article that he wrote on John MacArthur and the

Strange Fire Conference. I've heard of it. I don't know much about it. I guess it's a conference.

I don't even know what it is. It's about September or something. I don't even know. But it's about the charismatic movement.

And so Michael Brown wrote an article, and I've seen a couple response articles, rather full ones. In fact, I saw one

I really appreciated because the guy said, I really appreciate your interactions with James White and so on and so forth.

But, and then he went on to defend MacArthur and point out some things there. So good, healthy dialogue anyways going on there.

So I wanted to get back, and I'm not sure how far we can get in 15 minutes in the

Calvinist call -in show, but I want to do some there. And then I need to get back to Yusuf Ismail, and I will close off with Yusuf Ismail because I need to get to another gentleman who will be joining

Yusuf Ismail in one of my debates. And I re -listened to one of my debates with one of the debates with him.

Bashir Varna, I believe is his name. And I listened to a debate he did with Jay Smith.

And so I need to get that lined up, and we'll be doing that in the programs.

And we may need to do some megas there just simply to make it all fit because I want to get those reviews done so that I can contact them in South Africa and say, here's what

I've said. I hope you'll take the opportunity to listen to it, so on and so forth.

So that's what we're doing. So let's get to the Calvinist call -in show. We've got me potted up on the computer here, and let's listen to what

Michael had to say on Romans chapter 9. A very quick note on Romans 9.

If you want to argue that God chose Jacob for salvation, not based on anything he did, the twins were in the room, hadn't done anything good or bad, right?

God said, Jacob, I love you, so I've hated. The elder will serve the younger. If, in fact, you want to argue from that that God chose

Jacob for personal salvation and Esau for personal damnation, then you can't say it's because Esau was already fallen and in sin because of Adam, because it says before they had done anything good or bad, that the purpose of election might stand.

So election would have to transcend human responsibility, would have to transcend human guilt, and would simply be based on God saying,

I choose one and I pass by another. I choose to save one, I choose to damn the other. Ultimately, that's the only conclusion you can come to from Romans 9 there.

Now, let me respond to that. I do not think that that is a valid argument.

When it says they had not done anything good or bad, Paul's theology is that we fell on Adam.

And so the idea that, well, no, they are morally neutral, that's not the point.

The point of emphasizing the fact that they had not done anything good or bad is that God's choice in election, not their actions.

And so that's what we believe. We believe in what's called unconditional election, and that is that God's electing grace is not based upon our fulfillment of particular demands, requirements, et cetera, et cetera.

And so here's a specific text, Romans 9 -11.

Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works.

There's the definition. Not because of works, but because of him who calls. So the point of Romans 9 -11 is not that the twins were not fallen.

All the sons and daughters of Adam are fallen. The reason for God's choosing one or the other was not based upon what they had done.

It was not because of works, but because of him who calls. And so I'm not sure what

Michael thinks we believe the basis of God's electing grace is, but if you want to ask the question, well, why does

God choose one over another, there is only one answer that I know of in all of Scripture on this at all.

Because when it talks about predestination, Ephesians 1 -5, in love he predestined us for adoption as sons to Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, the praise of his glorious grace.

That's it. I would obviously suggest to the child of God, that's enough.

I mean, if God says it's the purpose of my will, we know

God is our Father and therefore we know his will is good. We know it's just, know it's right. We may not know all of his purposes, but we know that someday we will.

Or I take that back. Someday we will know that of God's purposes that he wants us to know that will be sufficient for us in our relationship with him in eternity.

Let me, is that a better way of putting it? I think it's a better way of putting it. But it's according to the purpose of his will and it is the praise of his glorious grace.

And that's enough for us. That's the only reason. And that's why Jacob was chosen and Esau was not.

And there are many people who do not accept that, but that is the statement of scripture.

And so I'm not sure exactly what his emphasis is there. But then we have the national blessings interpretation of Romans 9 as well.

And by the way, once again, yes, he is speaking a little fast because I still have it being God's purposes, not personal salvation, because the very verse quoted

Malachi. It's about the nations. Malachi 1, Jacob, I've loved, Esau, I've hated. Unless you want to believe that every Israelite was saved, which we know is not the case, and every

Edomite was damned, which we know is not the case. So even there, you have to press the text beyond what it's saying.

When you understand that the election spoken of is national election for service, then it's not up to us to say, well, why did you choose

Israel and not the Gentiles? Why did you choose this? That's God's business. And it's not based on what we do.

It's based on his sovereign choice. 866. Again, common interpretation, but one that I cannot even begin to see how someone can walk through it.

We saw this in the radio debate that we did on Romans 9. At least

I recall that. I think we did, anyhow. Every time I hear someone doing this,

I just cringe a little bit for the reason that how can this be merely

God choosing the Israelites? Especially because the very starting question, and if you want to read a real in -depth discussion of this, as everybody says over and over again, just take a look at Piper's The Justification of God.

He really strongly emphasizes this properly. The key issue is raised in verse 6.

Who is Israel? Not all are Israel who are descended from Israel. So that has nothing to do with national service.

And if the question that starts it all has nothing to do with national service, and then the objection that ends it all in verse 19 has nothing to do with national service.

That is, you will say to them, why does he still find fault for who can resist his will? Is that a nation speaking?

Of course not. And the only way that Paul would respond to that objection if Michael was right here is to say,

I'm not talking about resisting God's will. I'm not talking about finding fault. I'm talking about national blessing.

That's all I'm talking about. I'm talking about groups. I'm not talking about individuals.

That has nothing to do with salvation. And what's Paul's answer? Who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Well, what was molded to say to its molder, why have you made me like this?

Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and make his power known, has endured with much patience, vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which is prepared before him for glory, even as whom he also called, not from among the

Jews, but also among the Gentiles, as is clearly? If that's not salvation language, what is?

Called and glory, Jews and Gentiles, the church together. That's nothing. This national interpretation, well, with all due respect, is a cop -out.

It's a cop -out. You can't walk through Romans 9 that way. It's not possible.

You have to ignore the character of the objections that Paul himself raises to his own position.

It's just so painfully clear. So there's the

Romans 9. Then I mentioned to you that there was a Roman Catholic caller that called in, and I did.

Did we play that? I think we did, didn't we? I think I just skipped down to it earlier. That's what I did.

I skipped down to it. Okay, so I'll skip the Roman Catholic caller. And then we got a long discussion of all and every with the, how could the

Bible be any clearer than this? And I was a little disappointed with that, to be honest with you, because Michael knows that every word has a meaning within context, and he knows that all and every can refer to classes and groups, and has undoubtedly had to interpret various texts in that way.

And it just seems to me that here, you know, Michael and I can be on the exact same page when we're defending the deity of Christ, we're using the same hermeneutical principles.

It just seems at this point that that consistency disappears, and that's something I've said for a long time in regards to opposition to Reformed theology.

But here's the all and every, just throw out a bunch of texts type of presentation that, well,

I'll respond to it. Yeah, please go ahead. The penal substitutionary theory, if that's true,

I feel like Calvinism would have to be true. The limited atonement part of it.

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. In point of fact, John Calvin didn't even hold to limited atonement, as I understand his writings, even when he spoke about Jesus dying for the world.

And then some Calvinist... I'm not sure why he brings that up. I mean, I realize, you know,

I address that in The Potter's Freedom, and I think it's somewhat anachronistic to try to force

Calvin into the later argument at that point, but I think there's plenty of evidence that Calvin saw a consistency between the extent of the atonement and the decree of God, even though that was not primary focus of things.

But I think to try to force Calvin into a universal atonement position, in the way that modern writers want to try to do that, so as to undercut...

See, what the caller is saying is, if you have penal substitutionary atonement, a universal atonement undercuts the personal nature of the union with Christ and His death in behalf of an individual, because you have to affirm that every person in hell will be able to say that Jesus bore, in its fullness, the wrath of God against their sins, in their behalf, and that that person, by his refusal to exercise faith, has invalidated the work of the

Son of God. That the Son of God suffered to no end in behalf of that person's sins.

That's what you have to do. And the only way to do that is to fundamentally weaken the emphasis upon the union of the elect with Christ in His death, because it becomes dependent...

Well, you didn't really die with Him unless you choose to. Well, did you or didn't you?

Well, when you believe, then you're united with Christ in His death, but you weren't at the time, so there really wasn't any intimate union of Christ with the elect at that time.

Or you have to start playing foreknowledge games and saying, well, yeah, you were united with Christ. But see, then there's really...

They've got a problem too. I mean, think about it. If you do the, well, God knew who was going to believe and therefore united them with Christ in His death, based upon foreknowledge, then you're still stuck with the problem of, so only the elect, only those who

God foresaw would believe, were united with Christ? So if He saw that you would not believe, then you were not united with Christ?

I think a lot of them would be really a little bit uncomfortable with that. And I think

Michael's uncomfortable with that. At least in our debate, he seemed to be uncomfortable, and I would press him on those very issues. Well, I just got the feeling it was sort of like, well,

I think you're going beyond the text there or something along those lines. But it's the ramifications of what you're saying. I think you have to answer those questions.

We answer those questions in regards to the resurrection, we answer those questions in regards to the deity of Christ and the doctrine and things like that.

How about on this subject? I think we need to as well. Just had to admit that the atonement was sufficient for all and efficient only for the elect.

Well, sufficient for all. By that you mean that there is no inherent limitation in the value of the death of Christ?

Of course. If God had decided to, by the death of Christ, redeem every single human being, he could.

It's not like, well, the atonement only has X amount of efficacy, and so we can only save X amount of people.

No, there's no concept of that. The only limitation is the purpose of God and how many he has chosen to give free unmerited grace.

There has to be a consistency between God's sovereign decree of election and the outworking of the provision, the salvation of that work in Jesus Christ.

So yeah, efficient in the sense of it was

God's intention that those individuals be saved? Yeah, sure, no question about that.

But I don't know how Scripture could make it any more clear. I don't know how either,

Michael. I've been preaching through Hebrews. I don't know how it could make it any more clear that, as the angel said, he will save his people from their sins.

You know, you know, Michael, his people is not every single individual. You know that.

You know that. He will save his people from their sins. By this one offering, he has perfected forever.

Not made it possible. Perfected forever. Yeah, I don't know how it could be any clearer either.

But here comes the all -in -every stuff. That Jesus died for the sins of every human being on the planet.

That when it says... Every human being on the planet. So again, the

Amorite High Priest, the Amorite High Priest, to whom

God never sends a prophet, allows the

Amorites to continue so that their transgression becomes full and then brings judgment upon them in the extermination of every single man, woman, child, and pet.

But Christ bore the full wrath of God against the heinous sins of the priest of Moloch amongst the

Amorites, even though it was never the Father's intention that person be saved.

And if you're going to say, well, it was the Father's intention, then don't tell me that he actually tried to save that High Priest in the same way that he saved you.

Please don't tell me that. It's obvious that that's not the case.

It's obvious, isn't it? That he died for the world, the atoning sacrifice, not for our sins only, but also for those of the whole world.

First John 2 .2. First John 2 .2. And so you look at that and you go, all right,

First John 2 .2. How do you Calvinists understand? We've talked about it many times. He is the propitiation. What does propitiation mean?

What does propitiation mean? Is the term propitiation merely a term of potentiality?

He is the propitiation for our sins, not for ours only, but also the sins of the whole world. Who is the ours? Well, it's not just talking about the elect.

No, he's talking about Christians. These are Christians talking. But we're not the only people who will be saved.

There are people all across the world that continue in God's sovereignty to be drawn into fellowship with him.

We have no right to draw our righteous robes around ourselves and say it is enough. But does that mean that when it says the sins of the whole world, that means for the

Amorite high priest too? Is that what he's talking about? So his sins have been propitiated, right?

Because that's what propitiation is. Well, only potentially. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Look, there's only two consistent positions in the

New Testament at this point. Either you've got to be a Calvinist or you've got to be a Universalist. One of the two. This middle ground ain't going to cut it.

Just ain't going to cut it. I knew I shouldn't have gotten into this section because I knew I was going to run out of time.

Let me see if this is a... World is never used, ever, in the writings of John with reference to the elect.

So here's the way it's said. It's spoken of him being the atoning sacrifice for the world.

It says that God's grace has appeared to bring salvation. Okay, I can break it right there. I will split that chunk and start right there so we can look at Titus 2 the next time and not miss anything in the

Calvinist call -in thing. I do want to get to everything in this particular program that I put, and maybe the first time

I've ever done that. I don't know. Get to everything, even if it's sort of briefly. And some of you go, no, no, no, keep going on that.

Well, we'll get to it. Just spreading it out. Just spreading it out over a long period of time. Probably too long a period of time.

Anyhow, as I said, I'm heading to South Africa, Lord willing, and just raise, again, that need for being able to do that.

See the banner ad to get to South Africa. And one of the men

I'll be debating is Yusuf Ismail, and we are listening to his opening statement in his debate with William Lane Craig.

And to be honest with you, I don't remember where we are. No, I do. I know exactly where we are, but I don't remember what the context was.

It's been that long, and I apologize for that, but I slept since we did it last. So I'm just going to hit the button and get back to our response in the last 15 minutes of the program to Yusuf Ismail.

Whereabout is it in the Bible? Maybe Dr. Craig could inform us. C. Randolph Ross, who's a particular writer in his book

Common Sense Christianity, he debunks the orthodox view, not because it can be difficult to understand, but because it cannot be meaningfully said.

Oh, okay. I remember now. This is Yusuf Ismail's commentary on the

Doctrine of the Trinity, and specifically in regards to the unique nature of Christ as the God -Man.

And once again, there are very, very few Muslims who actually understand what it is we're saying, and hence can provide a meaningful critique of it, partly because of the traditions that are theirs, but just partly because they have accepted rather surface -level critiques rather than providing a meaningful examination themselves, and that's what we're encountering here.

He says to be human is to be finite, limited in knowledge, fallible, imperfect. To be human also means to be aware of one's finitude.

If Jesus was human, then he was all of these, and indeed this is how the Gospels portray him, experiencing anger, fatigue, uncertainty, reluctance, pain, and even death.

Um, notice they used the term imperfect there. That is what

I would dispute that is really what became the central aspect of my debate with Abdullah Kunda, is that he too identified human nature as imperfect, as in non -divine.

And we have to challenge that, because if you say that human nature, not fallen human nature, not

Adamic nature, but the human nature is, by definition, sinful, imperfect, etc.,

that God cannot create a human nature that is perfect, then of course the

Incarnation cannot take place because God cannot be joined with that which is imperfect in the sense of outside of his intended parameters.

But, obviously, when God created man, he said he was good. Very good. And so, that flies against all biblical context.

To be God means to be eternal and unlimited. Now, either Jesus of Nazareth was limited, fallible, or he was unlimited, infallible, and perfect.

Or he was, as Christians believe, one person with two natures, and that each nature is not intermingled.

Jesus is not a 50 % man, 50 % God, or anything of the kind. Again, Yusuf and the vast majority of other

Islamic apologists need to step up to actually understand what it is we're saying.

As long as you will not critique what we actually believe, then the only people you can impress are your followers and people who call themselves

Christians who aren't very well educated. But I would think that you would want to actually address what we do believe, rather than what you would like us to believe.

These two sets of attributes are so opposite of each other, you can't have it both ways. In other words, you can't have your cake and eat it at the same time.

He was either one or the other. You can't say of one person that he was both. Why not? You can make that assertion, but why not?

Since we are not intermingling the persons, since we are not saying that it was the nature of God, and that nature of God somehow became the nature of man, while still being the nature of God.

We don't say that. We're talking about one person with two natures. Those natures are kept distinct. They're not intermingled.

So you make the assertion, but you don't explain why. This is just a presuppositional assertion on the

Muslim part that the incarnation cannot take place. We're not told why it can't take place. God can create a perfect human nature, but he cannot join one to him.

Not in this sense. Making the assertion and proving it, two different things.

No attempt is made to prove it, I think because of a misunderstanding, a lack of understanding on Yusuf Ismail's part at this point.

Now we've got a challenge before us, and perhaps I'm hoping that Dr. Craig could give us in the rebuttal, unpack before us one model that would demonstrate the two natures of Christ in Christian theology.

No, I will not. It's an irrational question, and this is where I do not understand why

William Lane Craig answered the way that he did. How can you say that there needs to be a model for the relationship of the two natures in Christ when we say this is absolutely unique?

A model can only be relevant for that which is not unique. A model can only be relevant for that which is not unique.

That's why I've said when you try to use models for the doctrine of the Trinity, you will always end up in error, and I don't think

William Lane Craig has gotten that point yet either, given the Kerberos disaster. If God's nature and the way he exists is absolutely unique, there will be no model in creation that will accurately represent his existence.

You might be able to, on a very limited basis, illustrate one aspect of things, but every model will of necessity break down if what is being modeled is actually unique.

And if it doesn't break down, then what's being modeled isn't unique in the first place, and that's the problem.

So my response, if this is thrown out to me in South Africa, is no,

I will not, because you're asking me to compromise my belief. You're asking me to, on one hand, say the nature of Christ is absolutely unique as the

God -man, the Incarnation, and on the other hand, deny that by coming up with something in creation that models that.

Not a possibility. Show me one model. Some people have tried it, using a circle and the aspect or illustration of a square.

Let's look at a square, or a circle, representing divinity. That would fail because Jesus is said to be both human and divine.

What about a square, representing his humanity? I have no earthly idea what he's talking about. I've never seen anything like this.

That would fail because Jesus is said to be both human and divine. What about an object somewhat round and somewhat square?

That would fail because Christ is said to be completely human and completely divine. What about a circle inside a square?

That would fail because they say that God became man, not that God was inside the man. What about a square inside a circle?

That would fail because man is not said to be inside God.

So we're coming back to the question. Dr. Craig would have to, in his rebuttal, show us a particular model. He's written an article called

The Birth of God. It's quite interesting in that article, he suggests, in order to prove the divinity of Christ, that Christ's divinity was part of his subliminal subconscious.

In other words, he gives the analogy akin to a person suffering from multiple personality disorder. I really wish

William Lane Craig would stop doing things like that. So are you saying that Jesus was God or divine, but he was not aware of his divinity?

It was part of his subconscious, subliminal? I really, you know, didn't we learn our lesson?

Did we not learn our lesson with the

Gnostic Gospels? Which, by the way, the author of the Quran thought was actually part of the Gospel and quoted from and included in Quran, which is another issue.

But we have to get to that. Anyways, didn't we learn? Didn't we learn that you do not speculate about things the word of God does not reveal?

So let's stop writing books about what Jesus was like when he was a kid. You know, there are things that, you know, the secret things belong to the

Lord our God, things revealed belong to us and to our children forever. Might show some respect for God. And if I think again is, don't

Muslims already believe that? I mean, aren't there things the Quran does not answer?

And isn't the Muslim concept, well, if God didn't tell us, then we don't need to know. Again, the double standard thing is always there.

Explain and unpack the model before us. That's what needs to be done in the reply.

No, it doesn't. But unfortunately, William Lane Craig is going to try. And remember, that's when we get the

Avatar example, the movie Avatar. That's the example of Jesus that is given as his avatar.

And I, again, it was one of those situations where you're, you're riding through the beautiful Sonoran desert, which isn't going to be so beautiful tomorrow at 120 degrees.

But, uh, when I was listening to this a few months ago, when I first heard it, it was, it was still beautiful. And you just have this overwhelming temptation, just ride right off into the desert face first into tomorrow to relieve the pain.

It's just like, oh, between Kerberos and Avatar. I'm just like, stop, stop, please, please stop.

Awesome. Would say Randolph Ross continues. That's a paradox, but he responds by saying it's not a paradox.

A paradox is something which seems impossible, but can be demonstrated to be true. For example, it was a paradox when, um, you know, the scientists analyze bumblebees and they concluded that according to the laws of physics, they couldn't fly, but the bumblebees continued flying.

There was an apparent contradiction and an apparent impossibility, but bumblebees kept on flying. I am just very thankful, um, personally that bumblebees kept on flying because I think if we had determined that they couldn't and they all fell out of the sky, that that would have been a very, very bad thing, but I'm glad they kept flying personally.

But for an individual to be perfect and imperfect is a reverse of this. It may seem true to some, but he's not catch that.

You see, see how that imperfect part, the one part that we would have to challenge is central to the actual assertion that is being made demonstrably impossible and not just impossible according to our understandings of the laws of nature, but impossible according to the rules of logic upon which all reasoning is based.

Unless we can concede honestly, Dr. Craig can say, look, this is not according to logic. This is according to belief.

Well, if you're going to say like, is the incarnation logical in the sense of, you know, studying nature and you study nature and go, oh, there's going to be an incarnation or something like that.

Well, of course not. This isn't folks. Here's someone who thinks the moon was split.

The Quran says the moon was split and then put back together again. Is that according to logic or is that according to belief?

You've got to use the same standards. The incarnation is a supernatural event.

It's a natural event. You don't analyze it on a naturalistic basis any more than you would go.

Well, yeah, you know, um, uh, that Barack, you know, that, uh, that's, uh, you know, the sort of little thing that Mohammed rode, had the wings, you know, flew to Jerusalem.

Is that logic or is that the very essence of revelation and supernaturalism?

If you're going to believe the one, what are you doing sitting over with the atheists laughing about the other?

Consistency, folks, consistency. Be honest and suggest that, like, for example, what we have here, if you were to, for example, um, you know, the

Orthodox would basically say that Jesus was perfect with regards to his human nature, imperfect with regards to his human nature, but perfect with regards to his divine nature.

No, we would not. Stop saying that. There is nothing imperfect about his human nature. He's made the assertion that humanity equals imperfect because the only thing that's perfect is

God. So if it's not God, then it must be imperfect. And I say, no, God can create a perfect human nature without making a

God. It's a simple, semantic difference, but the whole argument has been smuggled in, not proven, but just smuggled in.

The problem with that is that it implies the existence of two persons occupying one body of Jesus. One perfect, the other imperfect.

Two minds, two wills, two characters. But the creed doesn't allow it. It says that somehow or the other, Jesus was not two persons, but only one.

Let me elaborate the last point that new knowledge can often declare old knowledge to be false.

But for the rules of logic, things are different. What is true by definition will always remain true unless of course you start redefining things.

For example, two plus two is equal to four. That equation will always remain true unless of course you start deciding to change the definition of the component parts.

Now by definition, a thing cannot be the opposite of itself. A thing cannot be perfect and imperfect at the same time.

The presence of one of these qualities... Again, without this element, the entire argument is completely bogus.

There's no element of truth to it at all. It implies the absence of the other. Jesus was either one or the other, but he cannot logically be both.

I've got a question for Dr. Craig. I mean, can you get a fat thin man before that? To say someone is both perfect and imperfect is like saying you saw a square circle or a fat thin man.

This is an impossibility. Are you saying the circle was not round? In which case it was not a circle? Are you saying the square was circular? This is not a paradox.

This is meaningless nonsense, however imaginative it may be. That's what C. Randolph concludes. I've got a question for Dr.

Craig. When Jesus... Now it's funny to me. Again, why are Muslims dependent upon other people to say these things?

Because those people do not share their worldview. They don't share their worldview. The application of the same standards that that author used to the assertions of the

Quran in regards to the moon being split, or the trip to Jerusalem, and then ascension up into heaven, and the vivid pictures of hell.

Do you really think that guy thinks that those things are likewise naturalistically provable or logical or things like that?

Why the double standard? Why draw from that realm of things? Why not provide an actually consistently

Muslim critique? That's what is very, very interesting to me.

And we will continue at that point. The next time we get together.

Maybe. I don't know. We'll see. But Yui just finished up a mega edition of the

Dividing Line. Two solid hours. We covered everything under the sun.

Just about. Trying to even describe this one is going to be tough.

I shouldn't have closed that document where I had all the topics right there, because that would have made it very easy. But I closed it foolishly.

But we'll figure it out. Anyhow, thanks for listening to Dividing Line. We'll be back again next week. Yep, I think both times.

Next week on our regular time, and then after that, it gets a little bit weird. But anyways, we'll see you then.

God bless. Won't you lift up your voice?

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